Surgery (x2)

Tuesday began very early.

The boys woke up wanting milk at 4 a.m. Unfortunately for Ezra, he could not have anything to drink except for water. Because Elliott's surgery was later on in the day, he was able to receive one more feeding before we left for the hospital. I was worried about them both fasting and envisioned screaming, hungry babies in the waiting room. Ezra is all about his milk, so we intentionally scheduled his surgery first. I knew Elliott would do better fasting longer during waking hours. 

We checked in before 6 a.m. and settled in for a long day. 

Despite being denied his morning milk and breakfast, Ezra was truly happy. He was calm and cuddly, which is a definite first. Nathan held him and sang to him before he received "goofy juice," which made him a little loopy and relaxed for surgery. The nurses and doctors loved seeing the boys and kept saying they were impressed with how calm the babies were. The anesthesiologist had twins boys himself and immediately won us over when he told us, "Having twins is the joy of my life. They are my heart." Of course, I trusted him with out little guys even more after we spoke.

Although I felt anxious the days and months before surgery day, I was surprisingly calm once the actual moment arrived. I felt peace that their little operation would go great. We received updates every 30 minutes and tried to keep Elliott entertained for the three hours until his surgery. He was an angel and did great fasting. He won the hearts of everyone in the waiting room with his cute little smile. At last, Elliott was given "goofy juice" (which didn't affect him much at all because he is always happy!) and was sent back for his operation. The OR nurse was laughing as she took Elliott away because he was so smiley and content to be with a stranger.

The pediatric urologist, Dr. Starr, then came out to speak with us and informed us that Ezra was out of surgery. She is such an amazing doctor. She stays with all of her patients in the recovering room and comes to get the parents herself. She let us know Ezra had done wonderfully and then went off to prepare for Elliott's surgery. 

Walking in and seeing Ezra laying on a little cot with wires and chords all over him was a little upsetting, but as soon as I held him, he began to wake up. He cried for a minute and then returned to his normal, silly self. As soon as he had some milk, he was perfectly content.

An hour after Elliott's surgery began, Ezra was discharged. We went back to the waiting room with a very drugged baby and waited for Elliott to be out of surgery. We were told in the beginning that no siblings were allowed in the back, so I was prepared to go back while Nathan stayed with Ezra in the waiting room. When Dr. Starr came to let us know that Elliott's surgery was also a success, she invited us both back to the waiting room. I let her know about the "no sibling" policy, and she immediately laughed and said: "Give me that baby. They won't say anything to me." She picked up Ezra and walked us back to the recovery room. All the nurses laughed when they saw her obviously breaking the rules, but I was grateful we could all be together.

Elliott had a harder time coming out of his post-surgery daze and nursed until he made himself sick. While Ezra had looked funny and even smirked once he saw us, Elliott remained motionless and looked up at us with huge, scared eyes. It broke our hearts. Nathan said, "I think this is the first time in months where Elliott hasn't smiled when I looked at him." He was pretty out of it for the rest of the day. 

After being at the hospital for 10 hours, we finally left with two very sleep boys.

We made it home, and Nathan and I were grateful to have both of our mothers there to help. Ezra was screaming in pain most of the night, and we had to supplement his Tylenol with Ibuprofen. I will be glad when the stitches are out and our boys are no longer in pain. Nathan and I are so relieved that the surgery is finally over and are grateful things went as well as they did.

Two side notes: 

1: I got ten inches cut off my hair last Friday (it looks so short in pictures to me!)

2: We got more comments about our stroller (in the hallways, elevators, and cafeteria of the hospital) than we did about our twins!